Portal Biden said his opponents were attacking him with “lies.”
The United States House of Representatives approved this Wednesday (December 13th) the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.
The House, controlled by Republicans by a narrow margin of eight seats, approved the investigation by a vote of 221 to 212.
Voting to authorize an investigation is not the same as voting for impeachment, but it does increase the likelihood that the House will seek to impeach Biden early next year.
Three Republicanled House committees justified launching the investigation by accusing the Democratic president of bribery and corruption when Biden was vice president of the United States under Barack Obama.
Republicans have been investigating the president since taking control of the House of Representatives in January.
Biden said his opponents were attacking him with “lies.”
BBC journalists Sean Dilley and Rebecca Hartmann point out that there are three main reasons that make this measure virtually impossible to succeed.
According to the two journalists who specialize in US political reporting, the first reason lies in the numbers. They point out that there is extreme skepticism as to whether the President of the House of Representatives, Representative Kevin McCarthy, can find 218 Republicans to support a formal investigation into the American president.
Journalists assume that McCarthy knows that any attempt to impeach Biden as US president will be futile. But they emphasize that he, like his predecessor as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi of the Democratic Party, is a highly partisan actor.
Even if the House votes to impeach, the trial will be sent to the Senate, which Democrats control by a 5149 majority. The president will only be removed from office if twothirds of the Senate support the measure.
Experts emphasize that this should not happen in the current Senate and has never happened in the history of the American country.
And the second point that prevents the implementation of this measure against Biden, according to journalists, is that the three commissions that have investigated the American president over the last nine months have not found conclusive evidence.
For this reason, journalists point out that it is practically unlikely that there will be any new and substantial evidence in connection with the case, since nothing was found after these investigations.
The third point, journalists point out, is that three American presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump twice, in 2019 and 2021. However, none of them were impeached by the Senate.
GETTY IMAGES Kevin McCarthy announced the opening of proceedings against Biden
The case against Biden
In a brief statement Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol, McCarthy said there were “serious and credible” allegations related to the president's behavior.
“Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” he said.
The White House immediately condemned McCarthy's decision.
“House Republicans have been investigating the President for nine months and have found no evidence of wrongdoing,” White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote in a social media post.
“It is extreme politics at its worst,” he added.
Hunter Biden, the president's son, is currently under federal investigation for possible tax crimes related to his foreign business interests.
McCarthy also claimed that the president's family received special treatment from Biden administration officials investigating allegations of misconduct.
Wednesday's decision was the first step in a political process that could lead to an impeachment vote in the Chamber of Deputies.
With a simple majority, a trial could take place in the US Senate.
The formal investigation will give congressional investigators greater legal authority to investigate the president, including by issuing subpoenas for documents and testimony that can be more easily enforced in court.
McCarthy, who leads Republicans in the House of Representatives, has been under pressure from rightwing lawmakers for weeks to launch an impeachment inquiry.
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, threatened to force a vote on McCarthy's removal if an impeachment inquiry was not launched.
McCarthy is currently trying to push a series of spending bills through the House of Representatives measures that must be approved by Congress by the end of September to prevent a partial shutdown of the US government.
However, the majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives is extremely small, so he can only afford to lose a few votes in the face of united Democratic opposition.
McCarthy's decision to support impeachment could be seen as an attempt to curry favor with rightwing Republicans in the House of Representatives in preparation for future budget disputes.
However, this strategy carries risks. Centrist Republicans in battleground districts have expressed unease with the aggressive push for impeachment, fearing it will anger the independent and moderate voters who helped them win and gave their party a majority in the House.
Democrats point out that McCarthy sharply criticized Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi in 2019 when she announced an impeachment inquiry into Trump without holding a formal vote.
A little over a month later she would take this step.